Popcorn
by Walking Happy Meal
Summary: Spike. Dawn. Blade Runner. Angst. Second of the 'Aftermath' series.


Aftermath...because survivor guilt can be a bitch   
Popcorn   
By The Walking Happy Meal  
_NB - This series contains huge spoilers for the Season Five finale. If you haven't seen _The Gift_ you probably shouldn't read it. This takes place about a week after [Uninvited][1], which you should read first._   
  
  
Dawn's in the other room. I can hear the noise of the TV. I'm glad she's watching it because she's not been eating. No interest in it. If she's watching her videos though, I can make her popcorn and she'll nibble it without really looking at it.   
  
Popcorn: food for the distracted.   
  
It's just as well really. I've never cooked a proper meal in my life and I doubt anything I could make would do much to bring her appetite back.   
  
William the Bloody Awful Chef.   
  
I'm not exactly the nurturing type. I'm only kipping on her couch because I promised Buffy I'd protect her.   
  
Nobody's sure what to do with her.   
  
Rupert normally handles the 'grown up stuff', but he can barely bring himself to look at her. That's because he spent so much time blithely suggesting we off her, but she doesn't know that. She thinks he blames her, but it's guilt. He's also having 'I killed an innocent' issues over Mr Med. Student. Innocent? Pfft! Dawn told me what he did to her and I plan on leaking the information to Giles just as soon as I find an opportunity. He's upset enough without worrying about that twat intern.   
  
We're no closer to figuring out what to do with Dawn though.   
  
She can't live alone. Even if she were mature enough to cope with that, the authorities will be prying around trying to see how well her big sister's raising her. There's no way in hell she could get away with it.   
  
Their dad doesn't deserve her.   
  
There are other options. She's got other family who'd happily take her in, but she doesn't want to leave. She's terrified of it in fact. Her Aunt Arlene called up the other day to check on her and she was so rattled she nearly hung up on her. Muttered something about Buffy being in the bath and said goodbye. That led to some unpleasant plughole/portal imagery and a three-hour crying jag. Since then she's always run to the downstairs phone before answering it. She wants to check the caller ID.   
  
She doesn't want to live with Arlene in Illinois. Doesn't want to stray from the Hellmouth.   
  
I think she's got it into her head that eventually the portal's gonna come back and spit out her sister for no apparent reason. Like with Angel and Acathla. She wants to be close by when it happens.   
  
I know she's hoping that because I sometimes find myself hoping the same thing.   
  
I think maybe all of them do. It's an easy thing to assume. Nobody ever seems to stay dead around here and it helps to think that it's not forever. Of course it's that tentative thinking that she might come back that's making them all put off the Dawn question. That and the fact that the suits back in England haven't phoned Giles to say that another slayer's running about. If she's not been replaced, then she's not dead, she's just... lost. Mislaid. It's temporary.   
  
She had way too much life in her to die properly. She's managed it twice so far and come back.   
  
She's not gone.   
  
She's not.   
  
The dead-looking one is Dawn. Sitting on the couch and staring at the telly. She looks like...   
  
Well, actually she looks like a Hellgod kidnapped her and sliced her open a few times after her mom died, her dad ran off to Spain and abandoned her and her big sister jumped through a portal to hell just to save her life, even though she's not technically real.   
  
Survivor guilt's a bitch.   
  
So I don't blame her if she wants to vegetate a little and watch...   
  
Blade Runner.   
  
Oh crap.   
  
I plonk myself down beside her and help myself to some of her popcorn.   
  
"You sure you want to watch this pet. It's about..."   
  
"I know what it's about. I've seen it before."   
  
So much for avoidance.   
  
"Then why watch?"   
  
"Because I'm like the woman in the film and I need to understand what that means."   
  
Introspection during depression. Nothing good can come of this. Do you see me watching A Clockwork Orange?   
  
"You're not like her. You're more like..."   
  
I'm having a little trouble coming up with an example. Truth is there's nobody like her.   
  
"Anya. She was this big demonic force, then she was human. It doesn't matter what she was at first, she's human now."   
  
Dawnie's not biting.   
  
"No, cause she was... y'know she existed as..."   
  
She gives up.   
  
"I can't explain it Spike, but it's not the same."   
  
She's standing up to argue with me and I can smell blood. One of the cuts on her arm's opened with the movement.   
  
Don't stare. Don't stare. Don't stare.   
  
Okay the chip doesn't seem to care, but Dawn's noticed me noticing. I suppose she's not the only one who hasn't been eating regularly.   
  
She doesn't seem freaked at any rate. She's even managed a smile. Bitter one, though.   
  
"You wouldn't want any anyway. Freaky key blood. It's probably poisoned."   
  
Fuck it. I'm going to nip that self-pitying crap right in the bud.   
  
I lean over and take her hand, bring her arm to my mouth and taste her. Just a little. Just to prove that whatever else she is, she's not poisonous. Then...   
  
"Buffy!"   
  
Then I'm feeding. Really truly feeding, because flowing through her veins is liquid Buffy. The tang in the air when she bled from battle. The blood you could sometimes smell on her, one week in four if you concentrated on it. Slayer blood.   
  
I'm having a little difficulty stopping.   
  
She doesn't seem too bothered yet, so I pull closer until we're in what those fucking awful vampire novelists call 'the deadly embrace'. Which isn't the best of ideas since the slayer blood is having the usual effect and now she's close enough to feel it.   
  
I shouldn't be doing this. It's taking advantage.   
  
She's young and she's vulnerable and she's... rubbing against my hard on.   
  
Just who's taking advantage of who here?   
  
Well, yeah but she's at an age when you get curious about these things and she's had a bit of a crush on me for a while now and she's... just doing it to distract me. She's clenching and unclenching her fist in mid air. Keeping the blood flowing.   
  
Okay, it's definitely her taking advantage of me.   
  
Devious little bitch.   
  
"You can pack that in," I say pulling away and scowling at her. "I'm not here just so you can use me as a prop in some twisted suicide scheme." I'm starting to shout at her despite myself. "Is that your idea of a happy ending? You want to negate what she did? You want Buffy to have died for nothing?"   
  
Her face crumples.   
  
Way to go, loudmouth.   
  
"Oh Christ I didn't mean that. I'm sorry Platelet."   
  
Then I'm embracing her again. But this time it's not 'the deadly embrace,' it's a regular hug. Just a normal hug.   
  
But it doesn't fix anything.   
  
It's just another distraction.   
  
  
[Read the rest of Aftermath series][2]   
[Send feedback][3]   
  


   [1]: http://members.fanfiction.net/index.fic?action=story-read&storyid=301751
   [2]: http://www.geocities.com/walkinghappymeal/aftermath/
   [3]: mailto:walkinghappymeal@rinkworks.com



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